Keep Dreaming

Bruce Springsteen’s new album, “Working on a Dream,” is the big release of the month—it’s out next week—and the veteran rocker has been extremely high-profile in the lead-up to its release. He played events for Obama’s Inauguration, and he’ll be the halftime entertainment for the Super Bowl, in Tampa, the week after next. But what about the album itself? Is it any good? Well, it’s a matter of opinion, as always. To me, it sounds slack: while the record leans more toward pop than rock, which was the case with last year’s “Magic,” the lyrics here are more problematic. They don’t have heft, which isn’t necessarily a problem, but they don’t have complexity either, or passion. This seems to be the consensus. The Telegraph says “at times the sentiments come close to Tin Pan Alley cheesiness.” The Washington Post is a little harsher, noting that the record is “full of lyrical missteps and half-realized ideas.” And Paste dismisses the album as “product.”

So maybe the album isn’t very good, right? It happens. It has even happened to Springsteen before: People didn’t like “Human Touch” very much, especially after “Tunnel of Love.” But wait! Here comes the cavalry! By cavalry, of course, I mean Rolling Stone magazine, which now feels compelled to take up the mantle for every aged rock star, no matter how confused, redundant, or subpar their efforts. Remember when they gave Mick Jagger’s “Goddess In the Doorway” a five-star review (penned by Jann Wenner himself)? Well, they’ve done it again, awarding “Working on a Dream” the same coveted rating. Again, opinion is a slippery business. People don’t necessarily agree on artworks. But there is also a spatter pattern for high-profile releases by artists that have been scrutinized for years and years, and Rolling Stone’s review is suspiciously distant from the consensus.

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